Whatever happened to compassion, understanding and taking each case on its merits?
The recent decision by the Africa’s football confederation to ban Togo from the next two editions of the African Nations Cup following their withdrawal from the tournament in Angola was so mean-spirited it bordered on the immoral.
As a long-time West Ham fan – I hesitate to say supporter because I am no longer a regular at Upton Park, but still cherish and relish the memories the halcyon days of Moore, Hurst, Peters and the cultured stewardship of Ron Greenwood – the recent appointment of Karren Brady as vice-chairman has me blowing bubbles again.
We all know that the two great certainties of life are taxes and death. But in football there is a third: bungs.
Priorities, priorities. Is Arsene Wenger beginning to trust his own judgement to the point of becoming self-delusional? And more alarmingly, are Arsenal fans beginning to lose faith in their beloved manager?
Not for the first time, Wenger’s decision to send out a weakened team to play Stoke City in the FA Cup at the weekend came back to bite him on the backside.
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As football movers and shakers head to Angola this week for the finale of the African Cup of Nations, some will still be mulling the significance of what happened the last time many of them set foot on the continent early last month.
Football and debt have never been strangers. All football clubs have had debts but, until the mid 1980s, not only was this debt fairly small but mostly a local matter.
First Africa, now Asia.
As our exclusive story last week revealed, some of football’s six continental confederations appear to be exploiting the race for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups to try to drum up some extra windfall cash.
Terrorist attacks, like the one on the Togo team in Cabinda, always raise more questions than answers.
For me the most important question is one the administrators of football and sport in general must answer: what part did they play in this tragedy and what can they do to make sure it never happens again?
It has been a dreadful start to the year for African football.
I was just settling down to write a column arguing that African governing body CAF’s decision to sign an exclusive sponsorship deal with Qatar 2022 demonstrated that FIFA needed to take a firmer grip on the World Cup bidding process - either that or simply auction the 2018 and 2022 World Cups to the highest bidders - when word of the attack on the Togo team came through.
Encouraging home grown players is football’s equivalent of motherhood and apple pie. You will find nobody against it. Yet no debate, at least in England, could be more absurdly framed.
Ask football fans across the major leagues to name the biggest change of the last ten years and one word stands out: money.
Roberto Mancini’s arrival at Manchester City and Mark Hughes’ departure have produced very predictable responses of outrage that Mancini should have been headhunted in this way.
Benjamin Franklin wrote in 1789 that nothing can be certain in this world except death and taxes. One could now propose another certainty. One day, a footballer will be found positive for a performance-enhancing drug in an important match and FIFA will at last have to confront the inadequacy of its disciplinary programme for doping.
So you thought hosting the World Cup was just a series of (possibly) great football matches? Think again. FIFA has made it clear to all countries bidding for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups that they must agree to a host of conditions which seem far removed from the beautiful game.
Australia have emerged as serious contenders to host the World Cup, particularly the 2022 tournament, with its high-profile supporters including Franz Beckenbauer, who has spoken on several occasions about how he believes it would be an ideal location to stage the world’s biggest sporting festival.